Exode - I couldn't resist investing!

in OCD4 years ago

Exode is a space colonisation game in which you take on the role of a captain who has to evacuate ships, crew and cargo from an earth outpost under alien attack (following most of humanity's destruction) and then establish and manage a colony on a new planet. It's exlcusive to the Hive blockchain

The creator, @elindos has been working on this for over 10 years and it seems to be his life-long passion project - it's the precisely the kind of independent game development I think is especially well suited to a blockchain like Hive, and I'm happy to support it with a little cash in its alpha phase.

@elindos defines Exode as a 'live collectible strategy game' - it's based on digital collectible cards, like Splinterlands, but with more complex characteristics.

You can try out the early alpha evacuation phase of the game on the website, no investment required, just log in with your Hive username, you'll need Keychain installed, it works beautifully!

I was fortunate enough to pick up a legendary card in my first contract drop - nice isn't it!:

Kumicho.JPG

Exode game play depends on these transferable (trade-able) cards, which have different characteristics depending on their classification.

The cards can be combined and leveled up to enhance the various different skills, and there are special 'elite' cards which give extra bonuses too!

It can be a bit of a mission to get your head around the different classification types of card, but as I understand it these are the major 'classifications' of card:

  • Origins cards - which you need to kick start your evacuation
  • Ships - which you need for evacuation, exploring space and maybe further colonisation
  • Officer cards and crew cards - which have various different skills and traits, tied to military/ scientific or civilian functions, with some being versatile.
  • Equipment cards - which you'll need for colonising planets and can attach to ships/ crew.

NB - that's a very rough overview, many of the details are yet to be released!

I like the look of the cards, I also like the game concept, the Alpha first-phase demo and the roadmap, so I've been happy to invest some of the Steem from my Power Down into the game. Exode is one of the declining number of platforms still accepting Steem payments, so it could be worth a punt if yer looking for a way out with so many of the exchange wallets closed?

The Game Sequence

The game is still in Alpha mode, so there's not too much detail about how game play will work, the only phase which is live ATM is the evacuation part, which you can test out here: ExodeGame.io

  1. Choose a main character using one the origins cards (the main options are military, scientific and civilian).
  2. Evacuate from an outlying space station with ships, crew and equipment - this is the fast paced, action part of the game in which you'll be under attack from alien forces - you'll need to use your crew's capabilities to get the ship ready for take-off (refueling it, for example), escort passengers, load cargo and defend against hostiles (who want to kill your passengers and steal your cargo!)
  3. Settle on a planet - there's not too much detail about how this will work, but every settler gets a unique planet according to the Wiki.
  4. Manage your colony - which involves exploring land and space, making items (depending on what resources are available) and (I assume) defending from attacks.

Getting started: The Origins card sets

To get started with Exode proper (once it's out of Alpha), you'll need to buy at least one of the origins card sets, of which there are three main types:

Capture.JPG

(The links above are to some excellent summary posts written by the rather unfortunately named @steemmillionaire.)

Each card set gives you the following, which will form the foundation of your 'evacuation':

  • 1 ship
  • 3 officers
  • 7 crew
  • 2 pieces of equipment

When it comes to evacuation, if you choose a military origin, it will be relatively easy to defend yourself and stock your ship with cargo and passengers, but you might be limited on the skills and people you need to get your colony up and running.

If you choose a scientific or civilian option, you'll have better planetary colonisation, management and exploring skills in the next phase, but you might find it tougher to get away.

Your origin will also determine how many of what type of resources you can take with you - the science ship is big on cargo, the civilian ship has more room for passengers.

The type of origin card you pick to start with with will determine the flavour of your colonisation experience - for example the scientist starter will probably be good for finding and cultivating plants, crafting items, especially drugs I imagine, which is going to be a feature of the game!

There are more origins in the pipeline, but these are the three you can buy from the shop, and they come with some other of the card types listed below (different depending on the origin card.

Game features

It's early days yet, so a lot of these are yet to be revealed, but this is a great article summarising their game manifesto written by @khazrakh.

The cards you start the game with during the evacuation phase are yours forever, you can't lose them in the game - so assuming you just want to quit a particular colonisation, you can do so and retain your cards for another attempt (I think there may be some kind of cooldown).

Some cards can be 'dropped' on your colony once established, and dropping them is like burning them, they only apply to that colonisation and will not be retained if that colonisation fails.

I'm not sure how the above is going to pad out... I'm thinking that you might be able to move from one planet to another, setting up a second colony, to reduce the risk of burning lots of cards on one colony on one planet and losing the lot? Not sure, time will tell!

There is also, according to the above article, no possibility that you can just be wiped out by another player, the challenges will come from the game itself - but you will be able to work with other players in some ways.

Exode: Find out More...

Get Involved (and I'll send you a card or two!)

If you want to take a punt on Exode, you can use my referral link, well you don't have to, but that would be very nice of you thankyou very much.

If you use my link to sign up, I'll send you over a card from my Tom Settler drops, as a thank you.

There are some very nice offers on ATM in this early phase of the game, but they won't be around for much longer, you've got until mid June by the looks of things to get in, then the early phase deals get burnt.

The three contracts (which I've bought all of) look especially good value, assuming the game takes off, excuse the pun, which I think it could just well do!

If you're not on Hive you'll need a Hive account to play this game!

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If the links to the above gameplay don't work try this one:

https://digitalself.io/gameclients/exode/

Can someone tell me how I can update posts in communities, I can't seem to! Some kind of problem with not being able to change the first tag.

I've experienced the same a couple of times and what seemed to work was to go back to the place where you started the post and click edit.

Hey cheers, I'll try and figure it out!

Shared to twitter

Excellent article, thank you very much for taking the time!

I think I'll rather chose a military origin, it actually has its perks but well it would be exciting. Never heard of exode, seems you're really having a swell time

Great summary of current status.
I'm getting really excited about it and hope i find time to actually play.

Your suggestion re using powered down Steem to buy cards is a good one.
I'm not comfortable sending any Steem to an exchange running the Thieves Hard Fork (23) so better to send to @elindos.
I can see he's working hard to create value rather than stealing it.

He certainly seems very committed - I hadn't really thought about that re exchanges, I just want mine out ASAP.

Sending 500 odd Steem to Exode I can live with, very easy! If that was Hive, I'd be more reluctant! Hive seems so much more precious!

I really would like to start playing this new game but unfortunately Splinterlands is already consuming every free minute that I have to play games.
It looks very appealing to me and I hope that it will become another great game on the HIVE Blockchain.

I’m so excited about this game. There are going to be killer robots. So sexy...

The killbot is the only thing I've left to buy!

That is one dreamy metallic man.

You can try out the early alpha evacuation phase of the game on the website, no investment required, just log in with your Hive username, you'll need Keychain installed, it works beautifully!

Where exactly can you try out the early alpha without investment? I just seem to get redirected to a page where I fist need to buy a starter pack first. I'm rather skeptical about the game and don't want to waste money on it before having some kind of confirmation that it's something I might actually enjoy like Splinterlands.

Apologies, I may have had the link wrong... try this one!

https://digitalself.io/gameclients/exode/

Thanks for the link, I tried it going in as a complete potato (like most people who will end up trying the game) & I had no clue what I was doing and how to properly play it. It does feel like a more valid game compared to the nextcolony/drugwars/holybread non-game Ponzis though. It kind of reminded me of FTL (Faster than Light) I once wanted to get into because it gets a lot of praise but I also never got really far there.

It is playable - it took me several goes to get my head around it! Think I’ve got it now, and the next phase comes out soon!

Never heard of FTL.

I had checked out the site and was intrigued as well but got distracted before buying the pack. One of my power-downs just came through so I bought one with steam and of course set you as a referral... one cool aspect is that I am supposed to launch close to you so we can maybe run missions together in the future, lets see

The game is going to be about collaboration I think, so that would be great!

Thanks for using me as a referral!

It looks great the game, I think I might have gone a bit overboard on my investment, but these Steem PDs, it's like pocket money day gone crazy!

Last time I played games was about 20 years ago, and just today I was thinking to give it a try to splinterlands, but since this is new I might get a chance to understand it better. I wonder if spending max an hour a day can be sufficient?

I only spend about 30 mins a day actually playing Splinterlands - i spend more time buying cards and writing posts!

The @splinterlands community here puts out challenges - quite a good return with the upvote if you write a decent post or two once a week!

Good stuff man, I feel the same about creating more than playing. Thanks for the info 🙌